Major Energy Reform and Small Government Plans Power Third Party Candidates

In the Presidential Election of 2016, there are two third party movements that could directly impact the results of the election and the future of the nation. The History News Network notes that only once, in 1912, did a third party affect the result in a positive fashion, when Progressive Party nominee Theodore Roosevelt split the Republican party vote with President William Howard Taft, giving Democrat Woodrow Wilson the election.

Now a century later, Americans around the country are looking at the third party candidates; Gary Johnson and Jill Stein. Johnson is representing the Libertarian Party with approximately 4 percent, and Stein is representing the Green Party with approximately 2 percent according to the RealClearPolitics national polling average. Both will challenge Presidential Republican Nominee Donald J Trump, and Presidential Democratic Nominee Hillary Clinton.

Johnson’s Big Plan For Small Government

Former Governor of New Mexico, Johnson also ran for president in 2012 as a Republican before joining the Libertarian Party and then becoming the party’s nominee. He told The National Journal that he would love running as a Libertarian because he “would have the least amount of explaining to do.” Johnson finished with about 1.3 million votes in 2012, which marks the strongest-ever result for the Libertarians.

He is now running with former Republican Governor of Massachusetts William Weld as his running mate. According to the New York Times, of Johnson supporters, more than 60 percent identified as independent and more than 70 percent were younger than 50 years old. Johnson’s supporters were evenly divided between men and women.

According to Yahoo News, Johnson is running on a platform of small government, tax cuts, balancing the federal budget and reducing military intervention abroad.

“Today’s federal tax code does all the wrong things,” Governor Johnson said, “It penalizes productivity, savings and investment, while rewarding inefficiency and designating winners and losers according to political whim.”

Johnson has stated that he will not “compromise when it comes to clean air, clean land, or clean water.” The candidate supports nuclear energy and fossil fuels, but has stated that the government has a role to protect Americans against businesses that would harm human health or property, including environmental harm.

Johnson has expressed major opposition to the Federal Reserve System, because he claims it massively devalues the strength of the U.S. dollar. Johnson would not veto legislation to eliminate it, although he has stated that “no such bill is likely to come out of Congress during his administration”. He has also previously supported an audit of the central bank.

Gary Johnson has an “enviable track record of success both in the private and public sector, an accomplishment that very few politicians can boast off,” according to Johnson’s campaign site. During his governorship, Johnson cut taxes fourteen times and never increased them.

According to a profile of Johnson in the National Review, “during his tenure, he vetoed more bills than the other 49 governors combined—750 in total, one third of which had been introduced by Republican legislators. Johnson also used his line-item-veto power thousands of times. He credits his heavy veto pen for eliminating New Mexico’s budget deficit and cutting the growth rate of New Mexico’s government in half.”

Johnson was not invited to participate in the presidential debates because he did not meet the criteria of 15 percent support in five polls set by the Commission on Presidential Debates.

Stein’s Mobilization Against Climate Change

Jill Stein is known for being an American physician, activist and politician. Stein was also the Green Party’s presidential nominee in 2012, and ran for governor of Massachusetts in 2002 and 2010. In 1998, she helped campaign for the Clean Elections Law in Massachusetts, although the law was later repealed by a Democratic-majority legislature, which led Stein to leave the Democratic party and join the Green Party.

Stein and her running mate, human rights activist Ajamu Baraka, are calling for “a WWII-scale national mobilization to halt climate change,” with the aim of transitioning to 100 percent clean, renewable energy by 2030. This is one of Stein’s major platforms; the Green New Deal. According to Stein’s campaign site, this deal also involves investing in public transit, sustainable agriculture, and conversation about climate emergency.

She has promised that “the Green New Deal prioritizes job creation in the areas of greatest need communities of color” and argues that the war on drugs has disproportionately affected communities of color. According to the Washington Post, Stein has argued for “free higher public education going forward.”

According to CNN, during both her 2012 and 2016 presidential runs, Stein has called for “nationalizing” and “democratizing” the Federal Reserve, placing it under a Federal Monetary Authority in the Treasury Department and ending its independence. Stein said that she supports a new 0.5 percent financial transactions tax on the sale of stocks, bonds, and derivatives, and an increase in the estate tax to “at least” 55 percent on inheritances over $3 million.

Stein is in favor of replacing the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) with a “Medicare-for-All” health care system and has said that it is an “illusion” that Obamacare is a “step in the right direction” toward single-payer healthcare, according to ontheissues.org. She has also promised to cut military spending in half, create a living-wage job for every American and eliminate student debt.

According to the New York Times, the Green Party candidate had hoped to capitalize on “disenchanted millennials” who supported Bernie Sanders’ run for the Democratic nomination, but has been largely unable to draw anything close to the Vermont senator’s massive crowds.

Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein and Libertarian Party presidential candidate Gary Johnson will hold a presidential forum that will be broadcast on PBS. According to Stein’s website, the forum was taped live Monday afternoon and it will air through two days on The Tavis Smiley Show.

Check out our interview with Jill Stein on eivnews.com.

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